Louis Tomlinson has admitted that carving out a post-One Direction career has been “a f***ing fight for me”. The easygoing Doncaster lad (whose star turn as Danny Zuko in a sixth-form production of *Grease prompted him to apply for The X Factor) got a little lost in his attempts to reinvent himself with an indie sound that he never totally inhabited. But his third solo album, How Did I Get Here?, *finds the 34-year-old sounding more confident mixing those indie guitar influences into a sunnier, springier, synthier poptimism.

Recorded partly beneath the lush, swaying palms of Costa Rica – where locals greet each other with the upbeat “Pura Vida!” – it’s a record that bops along breezily, hitching anthemic (if rather generic) Oasis-hued choruses to tropical pings and strums of electric guitar. The album bounces into action with lead single “Lemonade”, driven by a zesty little flick of a guitar riff and some zingy percussion – a hymn to the bittersweet sensation of being drunk in love.

The yellow theme continues on the mid-tempo “Sunflowers”, on which the singer – “sick and tired of smoking in the rain” – croons in quest of a bright paradise. His smooth, relaxed vocal swoons casually into the simple “ooohs” and “da-da-da-das”, later meeting the possibility of an asteroid destroying the planet with an equally blasé “la-la la la” on the beach bar soundtrack “Lazy”.

The boyband graduate might be looking back on 1D’s messy history as he thinks philosophically to the truth of “every f*** up, every fight” on “Palaces” (slosh-full of guitar nods to The Cure) and feeling “lost among the chaos” on the driving “Broken Bones”, which doubles down with the refrain “f*** it, I’ll do it all again” over the heavy reverb of some gurning axe work. There’s a bit of punky racket on “Jump the Gun” and a proggy, Tame Impala mood to “Imposter” as he reflects on the identity splitting nature of fame over a hooky, rubberised bass.

In an interview with The Independent last year, Tomlinson (who lost his mother to leukemia in 2016 and his 18-year-old sister to an accidental drug overdose in 2019) said he thought he naively was “well-versed” in grief when his former bandmate Liam Payne died in 2024: “I thought that might mean something, but it didn’t at all.” These losses all feel reflected on the echoey, acoustic ballad “Dark To Light”. The positivity of the other songs falls away as the singer faces the stark reality of bereavement: “There’s no phoenix from the flames/ There’s only empty photographs… I can’t carry this weight alone”.

He owns up to questioning what he could have done to change the awful course of events. “I wish you could see how you look in my eyes… Would it make a difference? Would it make you smile?” Although Tomlinson’s vocals aren’t wildly distinctive, he throws emphatic heart into a long bridge with the refrain: “Don’t go anywhere I can’t follow.” Expect lighters aloft and tears flowing at future shows.

I doubt many listeners would be able to identify these as Tomlinson songs. But this is a likable, grounded collection of sunny-side-up pop from a likeable, grounded guy.